You can never get that song out of your head after hearing it once. Congrats on your new ear worm today. Mmm You’re welcome…!

Benefit the Perk-Up Artist is way cooler than all than all that though…this three shade palette features a way to correct redness and darkness, cover and hide dark circles, and brighten you up!

Here’s a look!

This classy little palette (or not) is about the size of a credit card (thicker though!) and features a selection of shades to correct, cover, and brighten your face and eye area.

Perfectly portable you’ll find three wells inside the palette, a double sided applicator, and a mirror for application. It’s super travel friendly and contains great essentials to tuck into your makeup bag, gym locker, or desk drawer for touch ups on the fly. Benefit also includes a mini instruction card for making the most of the palette.

Each corrector is built into a small plastic well with its own snap closure which ensures shades remain fresh. Open ‘em up and apply, snap ‘em close to prevent them from drying out. Nifty right?

I love Benefit Lemon Aid (total HG) and I like Benefit Boi-ing. And I’ve been known to use Benefit’s pink brightening pencil from time to time too. I loved the idea of having all three tools in one cute palette for travel.

But…

Don’t make the mistake of assuming the cover concealer in this set is Boi-ing because it is not. Likewise for the corrector, this isn’t Lemon Aid in my humblest of humble opinions. I found the concealer/cover shade (a light universal shade of beige that should work on medium fair and medium skin types) and yellow corrector were quite sheer compared to Benefit’s full size Boi-ing Concealer and Lemon Aid products.

Benefit doesn’t dub these as Lemon Aid or Boi-ing so don’t make the mistake of assuming they are. It’s merely a variation on those formulas with a lot less pigment. This is both good and bad.

For touch ups the Perk-Up Artist is super. I’m not one for touching up my concealer as the day progresses even when I head out for a night with friends, etc….It’s just not convenient to touch up a liquid or cream concealer at work in my opinion. It’s not a product I carry around. However, the Perk-Up Artist is easy enough to use for touch ups. The sheer formula ensures you’ll get a nice flawless finish under eyes and on face without prepping skin prior. For me, a thicker concealer used away from home without eye cream available just ends up messy. This is a light formula that brightens up my eyes nicely on the go without being as pigmented as Boi-ing is. Likewise for the yellow corrector shade in the palette which provides just enough yellow to diffuse dark circles or redness.

The pink brightening shade is fabulous for use around the eye area (inner and outer corner). It proves the most pigmented of the three colors and provides the most brightening abilities as well. This as close a formulas as you’d get to the chubby pencil texture and in some ways proves superior due to the creaminess of it compared to its pencil counterpart.

On the downside, I don’t think the palette proves great for full facial prepping. This isn’t the concealer you’ll want to use in the AM when preparing your face for makeup and the yellow doesn’t do as well as a good old pot of Lemon Aid. So for me, touch ups are great but for full facial looks I def reach for full sizes of my favorite concealer and trusty Lemon Aid.

So how do you use it? What’s the deal?

You can use the yellow corrector on your lids, on redness around your cheeks, and even under your eyes to diffuse dark circle circles. You can use the cover up under eyes, on small break outs, or anywhere on your face that needs concealing. And finally the brightener can be used on the inner and outer eye corners to give the illusion of a well rested you (when in fact you only had five hours sleep).

Overall, Benefit the Perk-Up Artist ($30) is a cute little travel set that makes touching up a snap. It’s the type of kit that will have you looking well rested when 5 pm rolls around and you’re looking a bit exhausted.

On the downside…don’t mistake the contents for popular, cult favorites like Lemon Aid and Boi-ing as that will set up for a little disappointment. This isn’t a full coverage concealer and the subtly of all the shades def don’t measure up to those products.

It’s a hit with me but not for full facial prep particularly if you have issues that need concealing like dark circles, etc…but for touch ups on the go? Hells yes! Pick me up Mr Perk-Up Artist.

I actually just got this in a Sephora order yesterday, and it’s just meh for me… It’s going back. I completely agree with you – it didn’t do what I my other products do in the morning and I just don’t see myself carrying it around for touch-ups. So – more money I can spend on other stuff I guess!!!

angie, ok for me but kinda sore it didn’t actually include lemon aid and boi-ing, these formulas are far from the original :-/ that’s true, you can def spend money on something else rather than touching up only!!!!!

This is cute, and a nice idea, but I’ll pass. And as for Gunter… I’ve been a fan of his for years. I don’t know what it is about that man, but he makes some damn catchy and extremely sexual songs! But I loooove him!

You’re right — the guy on the cover DOES look like Gunther. And I almost died laughing when you posted the video. I haven’t heard that song in years.

All that aside, I probably wouldn’t pick this up, since all I do when it comes to “correcting” is put concealer on my dark circles. Quite a shame, though, that Benefit didn’t seem to put one of their existing products in this palette. Why go create new products for this palette when they already have good products like Lemon Aid and Boi-ing?

I think the packaging is brilliant – the product, from your review, not so much. Too bad they missed the mark by not putting the favs you mentioned in here.
On a good note, once other companies see this, provided there are no “lawsuits” maybe they’ll start putting the little caps on all cream type products in palettes.

ive like the WORST dark eye rings… i wanted to get this but the sephora lady told me it prolly wouldnt work on ‘super terrible eye circles’ haha. im so glad youve made a review!! =D btw Muse, i tried bobbi brown’s corrector, boi-ing, erase paste & also lancome effacerness… all doesnt work!! do youve a good recommendation?

Hi Bean, Muse gave you two great choices and I also wanted to mention Tarte Marscuja concealer is very similar to IT. I love tarte but I have to admit, after the learning curve I’m def loving the IT one. The trick is to use as little as possible.

Also, try different colors, sometimes if your concealer is too light it just makes your underrated kind of grey? You may need 2 colors, 1 for your eyes and another for your face,

I use a peachy color under my eyes and a different one for my face. Hope you find what you need.

If you go for the IT concealer get the one skyh the brush, IT brushes ROCK and really do help with the application. Good luck!

I didn’t love it either but I got it in a benefit sponsored givaway. So, I can’t really complain. My drugstore stuff works much better. Overall, I’m glad I didn’t spend my own money on it. It’s just not pigmented enough!

I actually really like this one….. it does just work for me, it lives in my handbag and I use it most days. I’m fair too but not super fair, and somehow it manages to be the right colour for me (count me shocked lol) x